


Memento

by Prochytes



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen will go to considerable lengths to find a sympathetic ear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memento

**Author's Note:**

> Set late in S1 (for Torchwood) and after S7 (for BtVS). Spoilers for TW 1x11 “Combat”. The comic which Willow mentions is Daredevil, Vol. 2 #5. Originally posted on LJ in 2009.

Love it or loathe it, you had to admit that the bar of the _Crown and Anchor_ public house, late on a Thursday night, was a veritable soup for the senses. And not one of your wishy-washy jobs like Minestrone, either. Something thick, and rich, like bouillabaisse.

The word “bouillabaisse” brought to Gwen’s mind a sharp, tender image of Rhys enunciating it for her benefit. The exaggerated undulation of his lips around the “b”s. The mock-reverent homage of his half-closed eyes to the Gallic gods of _haute cuisine_. Gwen’s own eyes stung at the recollection. She wished for the days before smoke-free pubs, when she would have had something easy to blame it on.

“It’s heaving in here, isn’t it?”

Gwen started, and looked down. At a table in a nearby niche sat a slight, red-haired woman, with a book open on her lap. The woman cocked her head on one side, and smiled up at Gwen.

“I think that’s pretty much your last, best hope for a seat.” The redhead nodded towards the empty chair across the table from her. As far as Gwen could see, it was indeed the only one in the pub that was currently unoccupied. “Be my guest. Take a load off.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Gwen protested. Her gaze fell on the empty pint mug opposite the redhead’s glass of something fizzy. “What about your friend?”

“Huh? Oh, that’s left over from earlier. I’m all on my ownsome.”

Gwen bit her lip. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind…”

“I insist.” The redhead held out her hand. “Willow Rosenberg.”

Gwen shook it. “Gwen Cooper.”

“Good to meet you, Gwen Cooper.”

“Likewise. Now, I just need to fix myself up with a drink…”

“Cool.” Willow Rosenberg looked back at her book. “See you in five.”

“Five” proved to be a little on the optimistic side. It was, in fact, closer to ten minutes before Gwen gratefully subsided into the proffered chair, setting her full pint mug of beer beside the empty. Willow shut the volume on her lap, and slid it into a bag beneath the table.

“Everything ok at the bar?”

“More or less.” Gwen took a long gulp of beer from her mug. “Right surly bugger serving, though. Nearly bit my head off when I asked what sort of a night he’d had. ‘Alright, ok?’ does not qualify as genial pub banter, in my book.”

“Maybe he gets sick of being asked that.”

“Maybe. Not exactly welcoming though, is it?” Gwen leaned back in her chair. “So, Willow, what brings you to Cardiff?”

Willow smiled. “How did you know I’m not a local?”

“Well, the accent is a bit of a giveaway. Not that there aren’t plenty of Americans in Cardiff, mind. My boss is American, at least to listen to. And he’s been here longer than I have. A _lot_ longer than I have.”

“I’m here on business.” Willow took a sip from her glass. “A friend and I are picking up some supplies. There’s a guy we need to liase with, but it helps if I’m not there for the actual negotiations. Our contact’s not real keen on w… on women.”

Gwen snorted. “Honestly. It’s hard to remember this is the Twenty-First century, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes,” Willow said gravely, “I have to pinch myself.”

Gwen was not surprised to hear this. The American’s outfit, while undeniably fetching, could perhaps best be characterized as “retro”. Good grief, was that actually a corset? Willow put her hands on the table.

“So, what’s your line of work, Gwen?”

“I’m… with the police force. Sort of. Actually…” Gwen’s brow furrowed, and she toyed absently with the flower at her lapel. “Actually, it’s complicated. Do you have a hankie I could borrow? I really need to blow my nose.”

“No problemo.” Willow dipped her head below the tabletop and started rummaging in her bag. Gwen heard a short intake of breath. “Oh, so _that’s_ when it happened…”

Gwen frowned. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.” Willow reappeared from below the table, waving a packet of Kleenex. “Just worked out something that was bugging me. You were saying?”

Gwen accepted a handkerchief, and blew her nose noisily. “Thank you. The thing is… actually… I catch aliens. I’m an alien-catcher. A professional alien-catcher.”

Willow seemed to take this confession a lot more calmly than Gwen would have expected. “That’s pretty major.”

“Isn’t it just?” Gwen swallowed some more beer, and watched as the American finished her fizzy drink. “Would you like me to go and get you something stronger? This tends to work better on alcohol.”

“On the whole, I’ve found that it’s safer if I don’t get drunk. Thanks for the offer, though. So, you’re an alien-catcher.”

“Yes. Which is no walk in the park, believe you me. But catching the aliens isn’t what gets to me.” Gwen looked away for a moment, and gnawed again at her lip. “What gets to me is what happens afterwards.”

“TIME, GENTLEMEN, PLEASE!” The staff of the _Crown and Anchor_ were old-school in matters of pub etiquette. The call to Last Orders therefore arrived at a volume not inappropriate for the Last Trump. Gwen winced.

“I didn’t realize it was as late as that. Anyway, the thing is, no one can _know_ about any of this. There’s this pill we use, called Retcon. It takes away people’s memories, if they see anything they shouldn’t have. So they get to go on being normal, while we zip around, in the know, playing superspies.

“Which would be fine, except I’m the one who’s supposed to go on being normal _as well_. And I’m meant to do this despite the fact that my boss’s definingfuckingcharacteristic of ‘normal’, which he enforces day in and day out, with big smiles and little pills, seems to be _not_ knowing what’s really going on. And it’s killing me.”

Gwen drained her mug, and squinted blearily through the bottom.

“I have a boyfriend. His name is Rhys. And now I’ve started using Retcon on him. Because I need to pour out the wonderful things I’ve seen and the shitty things I’ve done, but I can’t face the consequences. I can’t.”

Gwen put down the glass, and looked up at Willow. “I hate what I’ve become.”

Silence for a moment at the table, or as close to silence as anywhere in a pub under the imminence of chucking-out could get.

“I think you ought to know, Gwen Cooper,” Willow said quietly, “that it isn’t going to work.”

“What? The pathetic charade which me and Jack bloody Harkness but mostly me have made of my life?”

“No. Well, that too. Once you have actions without consequences, you’re basically a ghost. Moving through the world without affecting it, which is much less cool than it sounds.” Willow shrugged ruefully. “Take it from me.”

“So no: the way you’re handling your life right now isn’t going to work, either. But what I _meant_ when I said ‘it isn’t going to work’ is the Retcon you slipped into my soda while you made me look for a tissue. Once I felt it starting to do its thing, I shunted it out of my blood-stream and into an alternate dimension within my cell structure. The friend who’s picking me up is a big Marvel fan: I got the idea from one of his comics.” Willow put the packet of tissues back in her bag. “That’s what I did the first time, as well.”

Gwen’s gaze did not leave the other woman’s face. “What do you mean, ‘the first time’?”

“That’s a pretty flower in your lapel, Gwen. Do you know its name?”

Gwen looked down in puzzlement. “I’m not sure. In fact, I don’t even know where I got it.”

“It’s called Lethe’s Bramble. It’s what I used to wipe your memory of the first time you came through that door over there, an hour ago, looking for an action without a consequence. I figured that it would help you to be reminded of what it’s like, being on the receiving end of the amnesia whammy.”

Willow sat up in her chair, and waved. In the doorway, across the pub, a dark-haired man with an eye-patch waved back.

“Mr. ‘looks like a pirate, walks like a ninja’ over there is the friend I was telling you about. It’s time for me to split.”

Gwen’s eyes were huge in her bloodless face. “What are you?”

“Someone who’s walked the same road you’re on. I think that you’re a good person, under a helluva lot of strain. But my advice? Get off that road while you still can. It doesn’t lead anyplace nice.”

Willow shouldered her bag and turned towards the door. “Keep the flower, Gwen Cooper. Think of it as something to remember me by.”

FINIS


End file.
